Laurie Ahmadi is a 911 dispatcher and a former police officer living in a small Northern California town. She’s settling in for another night on the job when she gets a call from a voice she instantly recognizes: her 16-year-old daughter, Jojo, saying, “Mama? Help me.” Jojo doesn’t know where she is, how she got there, or if she’s OK. What’s more, Jojo’s best friend, Harper Cunningham, who was with her earlier in the evening, is missing. The entire police department springs into action, and through the wonders of electronics finds a drugged and raped Jojo in the home of Kevin Leeds, a 22-year-old African American pro football player and activist (think Colin Kaepernick) who is Jojo’s friend.

The police also find a dead body. What they don’t find is Harper.

Leeds, who was asleep at the time and claims no knowledge of Jojo or the dead body in his home, is arrested, although Jojo affirms his innocence. Meanwhile, Jojo’s father, Omid, the chief of police, suffers two heart attacks and is effectively out of the picture. Jojo is desperate to find Harper and enlists her mother’s help, but the deeper the mother-daughter duo dig, the more they come to believe the police force itself, a group that has been like family to the Ahmadis, may be compromised and that they all may be in danger.

Author R.H. Herron spent several years as a 911 dispatcher and her insider knowledge shines in Stolen Things, her first suspense novel. While a good read, it felt bogged down at times with the author’s need to incorporate all her agendas—racism, police brutality, LGBTQ issues, feminism, corruption, rape and sexual assault, etc.—into one story. It would have served the story better to have fully explored just one or two. Nevertheless, readers will cheer for Herron’s gutsy motherdaughter pair.

This debut literary thriller is what you’d call a Marmite book, with a capital M. While the writing and characterization can be exquisite, it is likely to divide readers due to its cast of unlikable, even noxious characters, including the self-absorbed, perhaps deluded, main character.

Cynthia is a bored and aimless 21- year-old who becomes obsessed with her fitness instructor, Anahera, fantasizing about future possibilities. When Anahera’s marriage implodes, the pair team up and head to a scenic coastal village to live a carefree life on a boat a few hours from the city. At least for a while.

Cynthia funds their trip with ill-gotten gains, but that’s not a problem, right? After all, Anahera is everything she wants. Or not. As the money dwindles and a series of strange things begin to unfold, Baby begins to take on a lurking sense of unease. Is Cynthia a flighty dreamer, or something more sinister? As the pages flow, there’s a feeling of a flashing red light just out of vision: danger, danger. While you may not empathize with many characters, there’s much to admire about the storytelling.

Regardless of whether the story clicks with some readers, Jochems shows immense talent in her first bow. She keeps us off-kilter, never sure whether the view we get has much connection to the truth. Baby is a brave novel, and it caught the eye of book judges. It won the Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction, a general fiction prize, and was long-listed for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel. Provocative themes, a claustrophobic sense of place—this is an atypical read, a book that lingers beyond the final page.

Fiona Kidman isn’t your typical first-time crime novelist. A doyenne of New Zealand storytelling, the 79-year-old is an award-winning novelist, poet, short-story writer, journalist, and scriptwriter. She has led many literary organizations, for which she was made a dame for her services to literature in 1998.

Now, she turns her sharp eye and flowing pen to a novelization of a real-life crime from her own childhood, and the deaths of two young men that later played a key role in New Zealand abolishing the death penalty.

The result, quite frankly, is brilliant. In This Mortal BoyKidman eloquently brings to life mid-1950s New Zealand, a nation still recovering from the scars of the Second World War. Onscreen James Dean is rebelling without a cause, and teens are looking for fun in ways that worry those in authority. Into this, young Paddy Black from Belfast is trying to find his way in a new land.

Why did this rather gentle young man thrust a knife into the neck of another beside a jukebox one night? Had he gone off the rails thanks to the bodgie (greaser) lifestyle? Was it callous murder by a young delinquent, or was the story more complex than what was published in the newspapers?

Kidman delivers rich characterization from the viewpoints of many associated with Paddy Black’s short life and sudden end. She takes readers beyond the courtroom, broader and deeper, giving us a textured look at a life that was more than a symbol, or entry in a history book. Throughout various times and perspectives, everything flows beautifully, building in tension and texture. A harrowing and haunting tale full of humanity that questions where justice lies, this is an important read from a master storyteller.

The sixth book in Ashley Weaver’s engaging Amory Ames series finds the British society matron and her dashing husband Milo on the way to New York. It’s 1933, the very tail end of Prohibition, and the city is full of gangsters, nightclubs, and jazz singers.

Amory’s childhood friend Tabitha and her fiancé, Tom, are getting married. The lovely couple seem well suited for one another, but there are all sorts of underlying tensions for Amory and Milo to sort through. Tabitha keeps trying to share with Amory something that’s troubling her but she keeps getting cut off, and the tensions come to a head when one of the groomsmen is gunned down gangland-style on the steps of Tabitha’s family mansion outside Central Park.

The rest of the novel finds Amory attempting to slip into detective mode as she does back home in England, only to find that American cops aren’t so keen on her interference. When the police announce the case has been solved, Amory and Milo feel something is still off, and they continue to investigate.

Weaver’s heroine is a mix of naiveté, practicality, and smarts, and she and Milo work well together to find out who the killer might be. One of the real strengths of the Amory novels is the relationship between Amory and Milo, both characters independent and respectful of one another. Amory and Milo manage to eventually uncover many secrets that involve a gangster boss, a speakeasy, and Tabitha’s circle of friends.

The New York City setting is fun, but lightly handled—Weaver isn’t particularly concerned with period setting details. It is her fast-paced plotting and her completely relatable characters that carry the Amory Ames’ books. Readers enjoy Amory because, despite being a character from a century earlier, she seems like someone we might know and like today. She’s a well-painted and human character and the books are all the more enriched because of it.

In Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Ellen Hart’s latest Jane Lawless mystery, finding the truth is of the utmost importance when Jane’s father takes on the case of a former client, Rashad May, who was convicted of murdering his husband, Gideon.

Raymond Lawless never believed Rashad May was guilty of the crime that sent him to prison. So, when evidence turns up four years later that points toward a miscarriage of justice, Jane agrees to revisit the evidence that was used to convict her father’s client. But with a host of potential suspects new and old, sorting through all the stories could prove a tough nut to crack.

And Jane already has a lot going on. Besides running her popular restaurant, The Lyme House, Jane is dealing with her lover Julia’s health crisis, as well as tensions with her best friend Cordelia. Worse yet is a phone call from Jane’s sister-in-law Sigrid from England. It seems Jane’s brother Peter has gone missing.

The twists and turns in the story will keep readers on their toes trying to guess who was really responsible for Gideon’s death, but Hart gives just as much importance to her characters’ personal story lines—which are complex and very real after 26 books in the Lawless series. Jane’s recently renewed relationship with Julia has its own issues, but the love the two seem to have for each other is apparent. Cordelia is her usual self, grandiose and outsized in every respect, but still always there when needed. And Cordelia’s niece Hattie generally mystifies her aunt, but their relationship is always a charming addition to the series.

Twisted at the Root is an exquisitely crafted mystery and readers will once again laud Ellen Hart as a vibrant force in the world of mystery fiction.

The Vanished Bride is the first installment in a projected Brontë sisters mystery series. The story opens in the summer of 1845, a moment when the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—and their brother Branwell—are all at home together again after having held various positions as teacher, governess, and tutor. They haven’t yet published any of their extraordinary works.

One August evening, Branwell brings home a lurid tale from his visit to the local pub. A wealthy young wife and mother, Elizabeth Chester of nearby Chester Grange, has disappeared. Her blood-spattered, empty bedroom was discovered by her children’s governess, Matilda French—who happens to be a former schoolmate of Charlotte and Emily. Horrified and intrigued, the three Brontë sisters resolve at once to call on their friend the next morning, setting off on what will become a determined quest to discover the truth about what really happened to the second Mrs. Chester—and the first.

It’s an endeavor that will throw them into unexpected and sometimes dangerous situations, requiring their combined intelligence, daring, imagination, and resourcefulness. Inventing a cover story that they are working for a male firm, the Bell Brothers, they refuse— as they did in real life—to settle for the dull, limited existence society prescribed for unmarried women without wealth.

While perhaps not destined to become as enduring as the Brontës’ own works, The Vanished Bride is well written, with lively and memorable dialogue, skillful characterization, and a new clue or twist in every chapter. The distinct personalities of thoughtful, empathetic Charlotte, headstrong, fanciful Emily, and Anne, who “wears her mildness like a kind of disguise... hiding a warrior within,” are deftly drawn through alternating points of view. Their bickering, yet deeply loving relationships with each other and Branwell are true to life. The plot cleverly evokes aspects of the Brontës’ well-known works, with touches, such as Emily’s purchase of dress material with a thunder-and-lightning pattern, that are based on historical fact.

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s latest standalone offering is a suspense novel that delves into what people will do for power. Rachel North is a Harvard Law student married to Jack Kirkland, a hugely successful, high-flying Boston defense attorney. Jack’s nemesis Martha Gardiner, is an equally driven first assistant DA to whom he’s just lost a murder case. So it’s like rubbing salt in a wound when Rachel tells him she’s been chosen to intern for the summer with Gardiner, an attorney who Jack believes uses unethical—possibly even illegal—tactics. Rachel promises to “research” Gardiner’s methods, though, and supply Jack with insider information—maybe enough to bring the powerful woman down.

From Rachel’s first day on the job, Gardiner takes an interest in her, involving her in a high-profile murder case. A little strange, considering Martha is well aware of who Rachel’s husband is, but Rachel jumps at the chance to be in Gardiner’s inner circle. It’s only when Gardiner decides to reopen a murder case that Rachel was involved with years before that she begins to get twitchy vibes. Is there something sinister at play here? Or is it just Rachel’s imagination?

Author Ryan, the winner of many journalistic awards for her reporting and many writing awards for her fiction, spins a tale told through the eyes of her characters (mostly Rachel, but also Jack and Martha). In addition she uses flashbacks to Rachel’s days as chief of staff for the president of the state senate, a man she secretly lusts after. It was during this time that the murder happened and the senator was forced to resign. With a denouement that will leave readers stunned, this is a book well worth readers’ time.

Kathleen Ernst’s Chloe Ellefson books have a formula, but it’s such a good one, and so entertaining, I really don’t mind. Each book has two threads—one in the “present” (which in the case of these books are the 1980s), and one in the past. Chloe has explored many parts of history in her nine previous books, all relating in one way or another to her job as a museum curator in Stoughton, Wisconsin. Many of the novels incorporate Wisconsin’s Norwegian heritage, and Fiddling With Fate is no exception.

Upon her mother’s passing, Chloe discovers that her mother had set aside money for the two to visit Norway together. Her mother, whom Chloe only recently learned was adopted, had a passionate interest in her Scandinavian heritage. Chloe’s stricken by the thought that she and her mother didn’t have more time to talk about it.

When she finds some mysterious antiques in the back of her mother’s closet, even her mother’s closest friend, Hilda, doesn’t know what they are or what they mean. When Hilda is felled by an accident (or is it?) and ends up in a coma, Chloe vows to follow the mystery of the artifacts to Norway, where she’s accepted a job researching Norwegian folk dancing and fiddling traditions.

Chloe also has a kind of gift, for want of a better term. She picks up “vibes” from places and can often feel when something will go wrong. It’s a talent the women in Chloe’s family all share, and it turns out it is often historically sparked by a fiddler or fiddle playing, which traditionally religious Norwegians believed was the devil’s music. She and her fiancé Roelke end up in the tiny village of Utne, and the vibes in Norway prove to be particularly strong.

When one of the young women at their hotel, also a museum guide, is found murdered—followed by a very scary attempt on Chloe and Roelke’s life—Chloe’s quest assumes even more urgency. While Chloe’s goal is to uncover the secrets of her heritage, Roelke’s is simply to protect and support her. It’s their strong partnership that ultimately saves the day.

The historical threads and Chloe’s quest tie together at the end in a really lovely way, and the reader learns something about Norwegian folk traditions along the way. Ernst brings not only her characters to life, but also the Norwegian heritage Chloe is so desperate to uncover. As a reader, you feel the “genetic memories” that are pulling at Chloe as strongly as she does, and I guarantee you’ll be immersed in her story.